Holy Moly!

I just got word that I am a finalist for Parent & Child Magazine's 2009 Mommy Blogger Awards!

I just about threw up when I got the email. What?! How?! Thank you to whoever nominated me; let yourself be known and I will send you an e-hug. Wow. What an honor!!!

I'm thrilled that this blog is in the running for this award for a number of reasons. I would be lying if I said that I didn't want the pat on the back (who doesn't?!). However, as time has passed, I've come to see The Meanest Mom blog as less the story of me and my life, and more a narrative about US and OUR lives.

When I starting posting tales of my daily adventures last year, I spoke only for myself. As I have learned through the emails you send me and the comments you post, it turns out (whew!!) that I'm not the only one whose days are punctuated with periods that are horrendous/embarrassing/downright awful in the moment, but pretty dang funny in the aftermath.

In short, what I've learned through this writing this blog and reading your responses to it is that what happens in my house happens in your house too. I'm not the only mean mom out there (thank goodness!); there are thousands of us....and we are EVERYWHERE! I am thrilled beyond words that that many mean moms (and dads, aunts, grandmas, and babysitters) have found their way here.

I feel like I'm running for student council all over again (and that's not a particularly good feeling) when I ask you to vote for me, but WILL YOU?

To vote, click HERE.

I've got some stiff competition from some very established and talented bloggers with huge readerships, so I'm going to need the help of ALL of you to get this blog into the top 5 and into the pages of Parent & Child Magazine.

How cool would that be?! Whatever the end result, I feel honored to be in presence of such greatness. Really. These mommy bloggers are amazing.

A horrendous tale of treachery, tantrums, and the side effects of subdividing my basement playroom with masking tape is on the docket for tomorrow.

Today-- please VOTE!

The Planned Community

My basement is one of the last few parcels of undeveloped land in Philadelphia. I had hoped to turn the plot into a community open space, but the inability of the territory's three inhabitants to keep their appendages to themselves forced me to subdivide it with masking tape.

"For the next 15 minutes," I said, "I'm going to feed the baby. Everyone is going to play in their own square. Stay out of other people's."

For the first 5 minutes, the tenants respected the property lines and played quietly by themselves. When the novelty of being confined to a 3x3 square of carpet wore off, the residents turned into bad neighbors. Cortlen's imaginary dog began to bark. Camber began to sing songs from Camp Rock in false bravado. Kellen wiped a booger on Cortlen's leg. Everyone dangled their appendages precariously over the tape fences.

My master-planned community collapsed in a heap of dust when Kellen army-crawled across his neighbors' front lawns.

"What do you think you are doing?" I barked from the sofa.

"I have to go the bathroom!" he protested. "This is the only way that I can get to it!"

My son's complaint drew attention to a small oversight in my building plans.

My subdivision didn't have streets.

Personal Progress

I was very productive yesterday.

I folded and put away two loads of laundry before realizing that all of the clothes were dirty. The last item in the pile--a shirt with a ketchup stain on the sleeve--tipped me off to my error.

I sat on hold for 7 minutes and 31 seconds waiting to speak with a billing representative at the hospital. When the elevator music stopped and the phone started "ringing," I turned off the speaker phone feature on my cell phone. Unfortunately, I also pushed the "end call" button at the same time.

A short time after Cameron finished his lunchtime bottle, he puked up its contents onto my lap. My older kids clapped with excitement and huddled around me as I cleaned up the mess. They love body fluids, vomit being chief among them.

I finally managed to accidentally kill Kellen's goldfish. Unfortunately, in the time that it took for my son to select a coffin/shoebox out of the recycling bin in the garage, the fish came back to life.

I found out that the 15 people selling washing machines on Craigslist never responded to my emails because they never got them. My husband said something about logins and browsers and cutting and pasting, but I tuned him out. I don't speak computer.


I ran/walked/limped 1.6 miles on the treadmill. After I was finished, I ate 3 Twinkies. They were delicious.

***
What did you not do or do a million times yesterday?

Decisions, Decisions

We often don't appreciate our friends until they spin out of control and spontaneously combust a half hour before one of our children fills a poop-filled toilet bowl with toilet paper and flushes.

Every single towel in our house was needed to clean up the sewage spill.

"I need a new washing machine NOW!" I told my husband.

After cordoning off the toxic spill site, I went shopping at the only place open at midnight: Craigslist.

I responded to 15 posts from people living in several states along the Eastern Corridor. My emails were surprisingly coherent and calm, given the circumstances.

"I HAVEN'T TAKEN A SHOWER IN TWO DAYS AND EVERY TOWEL THAT I OWN IS COVERED IN POOP," I wrote in capital letters. "I NEED YOUR WASHING MACHINE WAY MORE THAN THE FRAT BOY/NEWLY-DIVORCED MALE THAT EMAILED YOU BEFORE ME. PLEASE HAVE MERCY ON A MOTHER OF FOUR."

It's been 9 hours since I sent the emails and I still haven't heard back from anyone yet.

I wonder why.

Most people have to go to a STORE to buy furniture. This weekend, the lucky residents of my neighborhood only had to saunter to the ends of their driveways to purchase the love seat/sectional/bunk bed of their dreams.

Yesterday, a semi truck parked in the middle of our cul-de-sac for 20 minutes. The driver--a bearded man with no teeth--sold overstock furniture to passersby, ice cream truck style.

My husband told me that if I went outside to talk to the man, I might not be let back in.

Empty threats aren't what stopped me. Remembering that it was Sunday did.

Dang 4th commandment.

Close Call

Because I am a nice mom and lack common sense and good judgment, I let my five-year-old son carry the plastic shopping bag containing the clothes that I had just bought him out of the store.

"I would feel better if you put the bag in here," I said, pointing to the basket attached to the back of Cameron's stroller.

Cortlen responded by shoving the shopping bag up his shirt.

We had some time to kill before we had to get to the next destination, so I took my pregnant son and his siblings to Toys 'R Us to look around.

Cortlen spent the next 20 minutes crying about the injustices of the universe and, specifically, my unwillingness to consider exchanging his new pants for a glow-in-the-dark light saber.

I spent the same period of time trying (unsuccessfully) to locate an aisle of muzzles.

Cortlen waited until everyone was buckled in their car seats and the car was in reverse before announcing that he lost his bag.

My son spent the next 5 minutes scurrying up and down every aisle of the toy store looking for the bag like his life depended on it, because, in a way, it did.

Thankfully, Cortlen's suspicions were unfounded. No one stole his prized sweatpants. He found the bag of clothes next to shelf of giant pre-packaged Easter baskets near the front of the store.

***
What have you lost and where?

Ancestors

A lot of people have advised me to learn about my ancestors. They claim that researching my family tree will help me learn where I come from and will give me clues as to what I am going to look like when I get older.


I am against family history for the same reasons.

Mean Mom Giveaway!!!

I know you're out there. You may be hiding in relative obscurity now, but I'm on a mission to find you and make you a) admit to what you are (a mean mom) and b) accept responsibility for your atrocious acts of villainy.

If you want to turn in a mean mom (I'm non-discriminatory...aunts, grannies, sisters, nannies, and hot male personal trainers are also eligible) or are compelled by honesty to turn yourself in, join the brand new Meanest Mom Group (a place where you can meet other moms who are equally, if not more mean than you are) at MomLogic.com.

Once you join (it's easy and spam-free), write a post that includes the offender’s name and a super short description of how this person is ruining the life of at least one child. Parents who routinely watch other people's kids for free, force their children to eat oatmeal on occasion, and have fixed bedtimes (hey? what's that?) are considered to be prime suspects and should be apprehended immediately.

In addition to receiving several e-lashings from me, the unlucky winner of this contest will be subjected to a truly horrendous form of corporeal punishment: she will be given a $100 GIFT CERTIFICATE to SalonWish.com (a new division of SpaFinder.com) and will be forced to endure a massage/facial/day of pampering at a fancy salon of her choosing.

Gross, I know.

Contest begins NOW and ends March 20, 2009.

Hurry! Get a conscience and turn yourself in today!

***It takes one to know one. My current sponsors are mean moms themselves.
If you are interested in sponsoring a future Mean Mom giveaway on this website, contact me here.***

The Laundry Fairy

I was very young when I learned about the laundry fairy.

Whenever my sweet twelve-year-old self would ask my mom what she did all day while I was at school, she would count to ten and say through gritted teeth, "Who do you think washes your clothes...the laundry fairy?"

As a result, I've grown up looking for evidence that the laundry fairy has paid me a visit.

Yesterday, I found it.

Specifically, my massive laundry pile was half as tall as usual. Upon closer examination, I realized that the missing clothes belonged to my three older children. I clapped my hands with excitement over the fact that someone other than myself had to make hard decisions about the fate of skid marked underpants.

I was too busy celebrating my unexpected good fortune to notice that Cortlen was wearing the same outfit as he did the day before. Kellen's stiff pink shirt sleeve forced me to take off my rose-colored glasses.

"That shirt has a giant fruit punch stain on its sleeve," I pointed out at breakfast.

"It's all I have!" he yelled.

After rolling my eyes a sufficient number of times to let everyone know what I thought of his excuse, I stomped upstairs (sighing loudly the whole way) to have a look for myself.

"Have you been putting dirty clothes back in your drawer?" I asked my sons, pointing to the filthy contents of their dresser.

Stupid questions require stupid answers.

"I don't know," Kellen replied.

Needless to say, my belief in the laundry fairy has been shaken.


P.S. Do you how hard it is to find a picture of a non-trampy fairy on the Internet? Since when do fairies wear pasties and g-strings?!

One of those days!

It's only 10:00am and I can already tell that today is going to be awesome.


Sometime in the middle of the night, our cat opened one of our kitchen cabinets, pushed a container of baby formula to the ground, chewed through the plastic lid, and ate a significant portion of its contents.

Kellen used my cell phone to call everyone from A-H on my speed dial...at 6am.

Camber hasn't taken a shower since Saturday and is starting to smell. I broke the bad news at breakfast. It didn't go over well.

While reading a book to my boys before school this morning, someone kept releasing silent but deadly farts in my direction. No one would confess, so we had to stop reading until the perpetrator could take care of the problem.

It wasn't until after I pulled into the preschool parking lot that Cortlen remembered that he wasn't wearing any shoes.


On the drive home from preschool, Cortlen said that eating snacks and watching cartoons on the couch all morning would make him feel a lot better about missing a day of preschool. He is having a hard time understanding why I'm against that plan.

***
Any bad mornings out there?

Becky

There is one less person reading this blog today.

On Friday, my friend Becky passed away from complications related to leukemia. She was 29.

Becky and I lived in the same town, went to the same church, and had kids the same ages. She was pregnant with her third (a girl) at the same time that I was pregnant with Cameron. Our due dates were three weeks apart.

Becky found out that she had leukemia the same week in June (2008) that I found out that I had Fifth Disease and passed the virus on to Cameron. Though vastly different in typology, both diseases attack the bone marrow and blood.

Becky spent the summer as an inpatient at the hospital at the University of Pennsylvania. I had to go to the same hospital twice a week for fetal ultrasounds to monitor the status of Cameron's condition. Usually I would stop by Becky's room before or after my appointments. We talked about a lot of things during these visits--RBCs, retics, platelets, transfusions--but mostly we just laughed our heads off about the cruel irony of our fates: she was a sick mom with a healthy baby, I was a healthy mom with a sick baby.

Behind and beneath every conversation was the possibility of loss, but our words never touched directly upon the ugly. Rather than worry about what we might lose, we tried to focus on what we hoped and prayed every day that we would get to keep.

Sadly, Becky lost her baby a short time later.

Becky made it through the tragic loss of her daughter, two rounds of chemotherapy, and a bone marrow transplant before acquiring an infection that would take her life. While my heart breaks for Becky's parents, her husband, and her two beautiful little boys, I can't help but see this outcome in some way as an answer to two heartfelt prayers. Although not answered in the way either of us expected, in the end both Becky and I got what we wanted: she is with her baby, and I am with mine.

Show and Tell

There is an unwritten rule in our house that whatever object is selected and put into the school backpack the night before Show and Tell day must be swapped out at least five times before 8:00am the next morning.

Cortlen's failure to complete the ritual in a timely manner this morning resulted in him chasing my car down the driveway.

"WAIT FOR ME!" Cortlen screamed at the top of his lungs.

"I'm bringing something very special for Show and Tell today," he announced once his seat belt was securely fastened. "Do you want to see?"

I didn't even have to look to know what made the final cut.

After five swaps, a lengthy consultation with his brother, and an inner struggle that almost pushed him over the edge, Cortlen decided to bring to the same object to this Show and Tell that he has brought to every single Show And Tell for the past five months: a die cast Lightening McQueen car.


Way to branch out, Cortlen.

***
What's your favorite show-and-tell story?

Mr. Cupid

One day last December, my boys came home from church with a tongue depressor named Mr. Elf. The note attached to Mr. Elf instructed his guardian to do something nice for someone else and afterward, to leave Mr. Elf in location where the act of service was performed. The idea was that the recipient of the kind deed would pass Mr. Elf on to someone else in the family and so on.

Mr. Elf never made it out of his envelope around the holidays. I forgot all about the happy helper until Monday, when I found him alone and crying in the bottom of my junk drawer.

With the help of a red magic marker, Mr. Elf became Mr. Cupid.

Camber picked the longest straw and thus, earned the privilege of being Mr. Cupid's first steward. On Tuesday morning, she made Cortlen's bed and left Mr. Cupid on her brother's pillow.

Where it has remained for 4 days.

***
Happy Valentine's Day! Here's hoping Mr. Cupid has better helpers at your house!!!

Guilty As Charged

1. One of my daughter's friends gave her a Target gift card for her birthday. I used it to buy diapers.

2. The number of times that I make my kids sleep in the clothes that they are going to wear to school the next day is steadily increasing.

3. On pupil-free days, I eat ice cream for breakfast in front of my kids. They don't understand why it's necessary for everyone's well-being.

4. I make the child who I like the least at the end of each day scoop out the cat litter.

5. Sometimes it's easier to throw toys away rather than put them away.

6. Clothing items with which my children develop unhealthy obsessions always mysteriously disappear.

7. I've learned that cutting out the knots in the back of my daughter's hair is far less painful (for me) than attempting to comb them out.

8. We're still working our way through a bottle of fluoride tablets that I purchased 2 years ago.

9. I encourage my children to sleep on the top of their bed covers so they don't have to make their beds in the morning.

10. I sleep on top of mine for the same reason.

***
You know what's coming. Now it's YOUR turn!

The McDonalds Whopper

"Two Whoppers please," I told the cashier, as I slid a BOGO free coupon across the counter.

The cashier handed the coupon back to me. "We don't have Whoppers here," she said.

It wasn't until after I asked the poor girl what kind of Burger King doesn't sell Whoppers that I realized that I was at McDonald's.

In moments when I am confronted with my own stupidity, I almost always choose to throw myself off the cliff rather than back away from its edge with my tail between my legs.

In this economy, retailers are doing whatever they can to make a sale; I figured that fast food restaurants would be no exception.

"It's a competitors' coupon," I explained, as I scanned the overhead menu. After a quick ingredient comparison, I decided that I could be just as happy with two quarter-pounders.

The manager was called over to explain to me the difference between the 40% off coupons handed out by national chain craft stores and the item-specific coupons mailed out by individual restaurant franchises.

"Burger King and McDonald's are not the same restaurant," he told me. "Completely different."

I wasn't convinced of the man's claim, but for the sake of my children, who were wondering why it was taking so long to get their food, I chose to take the high road and not pick a fight over hamburgers (feel free to applaud my maturity in the comments).

The manager was feeling pretty good about how our conversation ended until I asked him if he would consider selling me a Big Mac for $2.50 since it was Whopper Wednesday.

I was only sort of joking.

Valentine's Day Cards

I spent the bulk of yesterday afternoon trying to get my kids to pony up to the immensely difficult task of writing their first names on the backs of 20 Hannah Montana/Transformers/Incredible Hulk Valentine's Day cards.

At one point there were stickers and small bags of conversation hearts to accompany each valentine, but like the dinosaurs, these objects couldn't withstand the force of their predators and went extinct.

"We'll have to go out and buy some more candy," said Camber, giggling.

"You ate all of your friends' valentines," I stated matter-of-factly, hoping that the weight of my words would trigger some semblance of remorse.

My daughter shrugged her shoulders and went back to writing gigantic C's and A's on each valentine. There wasn't enough room on each card for the rest of the letters in her name.

Kellen needed to be shown the precise location of the perforated line separating each valentine.

"Please don't rip your valentines in half," I begged.

Cortlen was unusually focused and cooperative.

I was in the process of praising my son's work ethic when I noticed the writing on each of his valentines. My son had written something on each of his cards, but it was definitely not his name.

"What does this say?" I asked, pointing to the letters. They spelled S-I-G-L-R.

"My new name," replied Cortlen. "I changed it yesterday."

"To what?" I wanted to know.

"Kyle Singler," he replied, naming one of the starters of Duke University's men's basketball team.

"That's normal," I said, and turned my attention to the tape dispenser and Kellen's stack of dismembered robots.

***
How goes the fun task of Valentine card-making in your neck of the woods?

Dead Deer=Rave Reviews

When church ended yesterday afternoon, the hallways were eerily quiet.

"Where are our kids?" wondered several lady folk, including myself.

We followed the scent of rotting flesh to the front parking lot, where we found 30 small children staring wide-eyed at the exposed entrails of a dead deer, which had been hit by a passing car over the weekend and dragged to the side of the road.

Usually the reviews of church are not so good. Yesterday they were significantly better.

"Church was AWESOME!"

"Do you think the deer will still be there next week?"

"If so, can I poke it with a stick?"

Really Good Idea # 4,236

Letting my kids make themselves breakfast while I finished drying my hair.

He Has MORE!

I'm in the market for a food scale, the more precise and expensive the better. Unlike most people, I don't want to weigh food that I plan to cook, but rather, that which I'm about to serve. Specifically, I want to make sure that everyone gets the exact same amount of root beer in their root beer floats, down to the milliliter.

"That's not fair!" screamed Cortlen last night, pointing to his brother's glass. "Kellen has more than me!"

"They look the same to me," replied my husband, before taking a big swig out of Cortlen's glass.
"Now they don't," my husband observed.

Cortlen catapulted himself off his chair. He writhed in agony under the kitchen table until I finally put him out of his misery and sent him to his room.

"He had more! He had more!" Cortlen cried until he decided that having an ounce less carbonated beverage than his sibling was better than having no carbonated beverage at all.

***

A food scale seems to be the most logical and cost-effective way to solve the problem of comparing/coveting in my house. If you have a more rational, time-consuming, or expensive solution, I'm all ears.

Successful Parenting Tip # 234

Parents of toddlers: I know that it is hard to watch your baby grow up, but if I were you, I wouldn't get too sad. You will get your baby back when he/she turns five. I can tell you from experience that you have a lot to look forward to. The second time around is loads better than the first for a number of reasons: 1) your baby sleeps less 2) cries louder and longer 3) tells you things about his/her siblings that you don't want to hear.

"Kellen's frisbee hit me real hard and now I can't move my arm," whined one of my newborn twins yesterday. When fake sobs failed to generate the desired response, Cortlen lost all feeling in one leg and was left with no choice but make loud obnoxious noises as he dragged the left side of his body across the floor.

After listening to my son cry about non-existent injuries and the plight of child martyrs for ten minutes, I told him that if he was going to act like a baby, then I was going to treat him like one.

A laundry list of suggested punishments for his attacker forced me to retrieve a bottle and bib.

As you can see, my plan worked like a charm. Cortlen was appropriately mortified and shamed into acting his age.

Number 2

Yesterday, I wiped three butts, only one of which belonged to a member of my family.

The other two rear ends belonged to my older kids' friends from school. Everyone had a friend over to play yesterday afternoon and two of our three guests felt it necessary to rechristen the throne during their visit.

I was in the middle of making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when I heard someone calling my name.

"Camber's mom?"

I turned around to find a kindergartner standing in the middle of my kitchen; her pants were around her ankles.

"I don't know how to wipe," she said.
"Seriously?" I asked.

Friend # 2 waited until ten minutes before his mom picked him up before doing the deed. Before closing the bathroom door, he instructed me not to go far; he too was not an experienced wiper. I spent several minutes trying to coach the five year-old through the closed door, but ultimately was forced to break my way in after the boy announced that he had reassessed his needs. After mulling over his options, he had decided that he would just wait to wipe until he got home.

"Do you go number 2 at your friends' houses a lot?" I asked my children very casually at dinner.

Cortlen looked up from chicken and answered my question with his eyes.

"Doesn't everybody?" they said.

***
Are my kids (and my kids' friends) the only ones who seem to take great pleasure in going to the bathroom in other people's toilets?

The Shampoo Whisperer

Some people commune with God; others converse with shampoo bottles.

Last night, I overheard a disturbing conversation coming from the bathroom where my five year-old son was taking a bath.

Just a minute," Kellen said. "I'm going to get you out of there."

I pulled back the shower curtain just as the last drops of a fifteen-ounce bottle of V05 made their way into the bathwater.

"Why would you do that?" I asked my son, pointing to the empty bottle.

"Because it told me to," replied the shampoo whisperer matter-of-factly.

The hair products in my house must be very persuasive in their pleas for assistance because my kids routinely go to great lengths--to the point of risking life and limb--to free the contents of newly purchased bottles of shampoo and conditioner from their cramped quarters. Over the weekend, a large bottle of Garnier Fructis was rescued from the top shelf of my bathroom closet in a death-defying feat that involved a Spiderman costume, three stacked step-stools, and a baseball bat. Before liberating the bottle's inhabitants and washing them down the drain, my son the freedom fighter took a moment to bask in the glory of his impressive accomplishment.

I interrupted the press conference with a firm warning.

"If you waste any more shampoo," I told him, "Then you are not going to be able to take a bath by yourself anymore. I'm going to have to sit in here and watch you."

After thinking about what I said for a few minutes, I regained perspective of the situation and changed my mind. After all, my ultimatum punished me way more than it did my son.

***

Have YOU ever gone to squirt some shampoo on your head only to be doused with freezing cold water instead? Let's hear it.

The Pet Party

On Friday night at 6:01pm, my doorbell rang. I opened the door to find a pack of stray animals on my doorstep. Each was wearing a sparkly party dress and was carrying a wrapped present in one hand and a stuffed animal in the other. When the group of 8 saw me, they began to chant "Pet Party! Pet Party!" in unison.

I quickly closed the door before the animals could barge their way in. My five-turning-six-year-old daughter, however, felt sorry for the abandoned critters and let them all in when I wasn't looking.

It took the strays--my daughter now among them--exactly 2 minutes to complete the craft that was supposed to take 20. Much to my dismay, no one was interested in rolling out the clay dog tags that they had just made and making them again.

"Let's take your pretend pets to the vet!" I suggested, pointing to a table covered with an assortment of toy stethoscopes and medical supplies donated by my OB-GYN.


"Is that a pap smear swab?" asked the mother of one of the strays.

I assured the woman that the object that her daughter had just removed from a plastic wrapper and was shoving down the windpipe of a faux golden retriever was just an extra large Q-tip.

As the mom breathed a sigh of relief, I started to perspire. My husband was late returning with the pizza and some of the animals were beginning to claw at the refrigerator.

I needn't have worried so much because half of the pack turned out to be vegans who didn't eat meat or cheese products; the other half didn't like pizza.

"Do you have any chicken fingers?" asked a friendly Dashound.
I was informed that Captain Gorton's fish sticks would also be acceptable.

"This is a pet party," I reminded her. "All we have is dog food." I pointed to two plastic dog bowls on the counter that were filled respectively with bone-shaped graham crackers and Cocoa Puffs.

After throwing 8 slices of pizza into the trash, I led the party guests into the basement, where my neighbor was waiting with her competition show dog and the dog's agility course.

"Do you want..." Before my neighbor could finish her sentence, the pack dove headfirst into the dog tunnel.

My neighbor and I cheered the pets on. "Faster! Faster!" we screamed.
The mom who stayed to supervise her pet was thrilled when her daughter emerged from the tunnel covered in leaves and dog hair.

After all of the animals were exercised, I took them back upstairs for some cupcake tops and rainbow sherbet. One pet (who shall remain nameless) had a difficult time determining where the frosting ended and the birthday candles began.

"That's totally gross," I hissed when I ordered her to spit the candle stubs into a napkin.

Thankfully, all of the animal rescue groups came to retrieve their lost pets at the designated time. The mom who stayed for the party thanked me profusely for the plastic dog bowl that we handed out as party favors. She especially appreciated me suggesting to her daughter that the dish would make a nice cereal bowl.

After all the animals left, I was left with just my pet, who wanted to know why all of her friends couldn't spend the night after the party.

For once, the answer came easy. "I don't have enough crates, silly!"